Project - First Steps to Mastering Gesture
$125
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Full course
Dive into gesture drawing's why, what, and how, mastering techniques like the 16-line method and shape gestures to capture the figure's essence.
$125
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Educator, painter, and art historian. Author of Figure Drawing: Design and Invention and Gesture Drawing: Dynamic Movement and Form.
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Assignment_Image_01.jpg
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Assignment_Image_02.jpg
2 MB
Assignment_Image_03.jpg
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Assignment_Image_04.jpg
5 MB
Assignment_Image_05.jpg
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project-first-steps-to-mastering-gesture.mp4
109 MB
project-first-steps-to-mastering-gesture-transcript-english.txt
2 kB
project-first-steps-to-mastering-gesture-transcript-spanish.txt
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project-first-steps-to-mastering-gesture-captions-english.srt
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project-first-steps-to-mastering-gesture-captions-spanish.srt
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ASSIGNMENTS![]()
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For your homework this week, you'll be doing a series of gesture drawings. Use the six steps to break the body down into asymmetries, focusing on keeping within that 16 to 17 line ballpark.
I'd like you to:
- Do 10 gesture drawings from master copies.
- Do 10 gesture drawings from your imagination.
Master Copies
When I say "master copies," I mean drawings from any artists or sources that you like. Masters are not limited to classical artists like Michelangelo or Rubens. They can be from comics, video games, movies, or anything that inspires you. Go online and get art from the masters you love and admire! Draw from a range of contemporary to classical masters to broaden your understanding of gesture.
In the upcoming assignment demos, I will be drawing from:
- Michelangelo
- Rubens
- Rodin
- Rob Liefeld
- Abby from The Last of Us (Her body language communicates different emotions throughout the game and I want to show that you can draw from 3D reference as well.)
- Kratos from God of War (The evolution of his pose and body type tells an interesting story.)
You do not need to draw from these masters, they are only suggestions.
I believe that 3D character artists have just as much understanding of gesture, body language, movement, and dynamics as 2D concept artists. So, feel free to draw from 3D models, concept art, or any visual media where these principles are evident.
For other teachers, it might be unconventional to mix these sources, but I encourage you to use anything you like. The key is that the principles of gesture and asymmetry are present.
Drawing from Your Imagination
For the last part of the assignment, try 10 gesture drawings from your imagination. I know this is more challenging, especially with a new technique, but drawing from your head helps you:
- Disconnect from needing to represent something specific.
- Quickly learn what you don't understand.
- Identify areas where you need more focus.
If you're having trouble drawing gestures from imagination, try this: look at a reference photo, then visualize that same pose from a different angle and draw it. Or, use the reference as inspiration to create a follow-up pose from your imagination. I have included a handful of reference photos in the downloads section that you can use for this purpose. Give it a try!
This exercise will help you come back to your work with fresh eyes and a better understanding of where to improve.
* * *
Submit your assignment drawings (and reference images!) by March 5th for a chance to be included in the video critique. The Critique video should come out about a week after the due date.
Good luck with your homework this week!
I just want to give a huge thanks for this course! I drew quite a bit end of 24 and beginning 25. Also got a phase before that. Went with what "the internet" said. Learned about observation from Draw a box, Proko, Love Life Drawing (Still an awesome community by the way.) It was all about the right angle and hard focused observation, make exactly ONE mark and just "think" that the form is 3d. I focused so hard, gave my 110% for like 3 months and burned out because it was so exhausting and additionally frustrating to not get it "right". I didn´t like the process and what I´ve drawn. I actually thought drawing is not for me bc i put in a lot of work with that supposed to be correct way of learning, it didn´t really got better and didn´t make fun. But I thought, well that´s the way to approach drawing.
I started again two days ago. Just out of a blip of inspiration and thought, well a course on gesture might be helpful. With Stevens´ approach I have more fun, my lines can be messy, I can "search" for my line, my lines are waaaay more fluid and free (the actual movement I love when drawing gesture) and the drawng itself is manifolds more pleasing to my eye than before.
It might sound weird but somehow, as a drawing beginner, I just needed the permission to do whatever the f*** I want, whatever works for me and whatever is enjoyable for me. This is my experience as an 38 y old hobbiest. I´m not aiming to becoming a pro artist. YMWV
The first image shows my gestures from a life drawing class in January 25. After I practised for about 2 month, went several times to life drawing class and "observed" the shit out of angles and landmarks in references.
The second image shows my gestures after two days! in this course after a 1,5 year drawing hiatus.
The first gesture is a master study of an underwater girl painting with a difficult angle from loish
https://www.instagram.com/loisvb/p/CuUlUHbMzj0/
The second is a study of a summer hat girl drawing by Lane Brown https://www.instagram.com/lane.draws/p/C8xFgmHg3n2/
Can those be improved? No, they are as good as they can get and I´m proud of those little works. The next ones however can be drawn even better. But then, these might just be contour drawings XD :P
Thanks Steven for this course! Probably saved me from another drawing burnout.
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1d
I am so happy to read this :)
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1d
Amazing! So happy the course helped invite you back into drawing! Best possible outcome. Thanks so much for sharing.
Here is my attempt on this assignment. I first did it with graphite but it’s coming out too light. Was using a HB pencil and went to a ballpoint pen to practice.
did 10 master studies and 10 from imagination which was hard. Time to watch the next videos and critique! 🙌🏻
A little play with this. Not sure if the assignment was to stay strictly to the 16-17 lines. I went a bit with the flow, but tried to restrict myself. Will continue the deep dive
Here is my assignment. I kept falling into the habit of try to draw the forms and not the flow. The lumbar stroke was really throwing me off because my mind kept seeing it as an outer contour instead of part of the spine and petting is an unconscious habit I'm trying really hard to break. I don't think I like how these came out too much, but I'll keep trying.
Here are my master studies. I’m very new to gesture, but I’ve been practicing every day this week. If anyone has feedback, I’d be grateful. I’ll do the ones from imagination soon.
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28d
Great starts!
Hi everyone,
I am hoping one or more of you can give me some direction. I am not confident at all in my gesture poses. When I watch the videos, I draw gestures of the models or characters before SMH does it, then watch him do it to see if my gesture is similar to his and figure out how to improve mine. I struggle mostly within the rib cage and pelvic areas, but am also concerned with legs and the cross contour lines (not sure they are always the right size or angle). I'm attaching a few gestures based on the video models (the red marks on #2 are corrections) and a couple of the gestures based on master works. Before attempting to complete this assignment, I could really use some advice (not just about what I've done wrong but how I can figure out how/why to change it). Thanks so much!
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1mo
With the first two images, the biggest difference I'm seeing between the two gestures are the emphasis on the pinch and stretch of the torso. SMH is super pushing that effect in his gestures. Keep an eye out for that in the next poses that you try. Keeping in mind the natural tilts of the pelvis and the ribcage, think about how you can put more emphasis that relationship.
With that one master study with the twist in the torso, you're on the right track. It didn't take many more lines in my draw-over to get to the pose. My advice would to make note of the angles of the shoulders and pelvis, and pay special attention to the center line. You can jot these down on the page very lightly as a guide if it helps. You can see the rhythms that the centerline makes in SMH's gesture drawing. He drew through the front line to make sure it connects.
And, these are my 10 from imagination! Most of them were invented on the spot as I was drawing them - it was fun trying to find the flow of a pose whilst in the middle of sketching it out. My least successful ones where the ones where I went into the drawing with an idea of what I wanted. I think these ended up a little too silted, rather than fluid.
looking forward to the next lesson 😊
Hello, the green one is my attempt at my own pose, and I can see right away my biggest flaw is posing the legs intuitively (which I will work on). Thank you for the great workflow.
My masterworks studies - based on a few of my favourite gestural artists - like Paul Kidby and Amanda Macfarlane, and yoji Shinkawa, as well as a few stills from the Lupin III anime, which has some of my favourite OTT animation.
tomorrow, the 10 from imagination!
Hi ! A lot of fun to do it even if i had time only for masters copies today. Can’t wait to play with gesture and improve.
honestly, I'm having so much fun with these! Most of these are from imagination - it's really satisfying doing one pose quickly, then experimenting and changing the emotion or expressiveness and seeing the difference. Probs the most fun exercise I've done for drawing 🙂
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2mo
Great work! So glad to hear you're enjoying some of the play and freedom possible in this approach!
You should see my drawings before these few lessons, they were nothing like these, which are not perfect, but definitely better than before :). (I did more, and I think the key is to practice a lot just for fun).
I love reading, so I imagine the story and that really helped me for this activity.
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2mo
Great work!
I feel like I've improved a lot on doing these. Still not an expert, but I feel a lot more confident than I did 3 weeks ago. I'll probably stick to doing these for a couple of days before moving on in the course. I've also included some 30s attempts from a few weeks back just to see how far I've come. Currently I'll spend 30-60 minutes a day just doing gesture drawings from lineofaction.com
Also I definitely took a few liberties with the source material. I tried to exaggerate a bit. I'm not sure the Savage Dragon one came out like the reference, but I think the pose is at least in the same ballpark. Feedback, as always, is greatly appreciated.
Revisiting this and the Figure Construction course after working through them a year ago.. Trying to remember that this is all about asymmetry. Also the asymmetry is so visually pleasing, I'm thinking about how it can remain visible through to the final sketch, so added a little rough shading to the gesture drawings.
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4mo
Excellent studies!
Gesture studies for the "master copies" and imaginative poses from the provided reference images.
I found the imaginative poses (last image, photographs) challenging. I have always struggled when departing from reference, especially with figure and portrait, and hope this improves with continuing study.
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4mo
Really nice! Only thing I'm noticing is that the heads look a touch small in some. Just look out for that in the future. Otherwise, they look great!
Here are 9 from imagination. Unsure why some photos are over 10 mb but size doesn’t state it in my photo library. Let me know any improvements or suggestions. Thank you
